DECLARING it to be in crisis, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) yesterday called for a “full inquiry” into Jamaica’s justice system, saying that the probe would help to “identify and remedy its weaknesses”.

Delroy Chuck, the party’s shadow minister for justice, said last night that he planned to bring a parliamentary motion, calling for the commission of inquiry.

“It is something that I hope to do,” he told the Observer.

In a separate, but related matter the Jamaica Bar Association (JBA) declared its support for the retention of trial by jury, saying the system was a cornerstone of democracy. This was an obvious rebuttal of a recent suggestion by Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe that more cases should be tried solely by judges.

“We see no basis for any abolition of the jury system and note that as sole judges of the facts, members of the jury are guided by their instructions on the law from a judge, their own personal assessment of the facts in the case and their individual consciences,” said the Bar Association’s president, Arlene Harrison-Henry, in a written statement.

She also called for respect of the orders and dignity of the courts, “always mindful of the entitlement to robust but respectful dissent” – a clear comment on recent statements by Carolyn Gomes, the executive director of the rights group Jamaicans For Justice, on the performance of judges in recent cases.

The JBA’s statement, and the JLP’s call for this review of the administration of justice in Jamaica follow hard on Tuesday’s acquittal by a jury of tough cop Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and two members of his disbanded Crime Management Unit (CMU) over the Crawle killings in May 2003. Three other cops were freed 10 days ago when Wolfe ruled that prosecutors had not made a prima facie case against them.

The JLP also drew attention to the acquittal a fortnight ago of three other policeman, accused of the murder of a 15-year-old boy named Jason Smith.

Human rights groups had followed the two cases closely, insisting the victims were executed and had not been engaged in gunfights as the police alleged. The JLP made a similar claim in a statement yesterday, arguing that the results of the cases were a public loss of trust and confidence in the system.

“The Jamaican justice system. is in crisis and in urgent need of a full inquiry,” the Opposition party said. “The people feel the justice system is ruined and incapable of delivering justice according to the rule of law.”

In a country where homicides will pass 1,500 this year – one of the world’s highest murder rates – police kill about 140 people annually. But the government has argued that while the number remains high, it has to be taken in the context of the country’s crime rate and the fact that police killings have fallen from over 300 a year in the mid-1980s.

However, rights advocates often complain – as the JLP did yesterday – that even when police are brought to trial for alleged extra-judicial killings, they are not convicted. Critics blame sloppy investigation by local cops, although in the Crawle case the investigation was led by detectives from the London Metropolitan Police while British forensic experts analysed evidence. Moreover, the critics say, the justice system is stacked against the mostly poor, inner-city victims of police homicides.

In an interview last night, Chuck said that other countries, including Great Britain, do periodic assessments of their justice systems, or parts of them, hoping for reforms that will bring improvement.

“None has been done in Jamaica as far as I can remember,” Chuck said. “Nothing would be wrong in our assessing the delivery of justice to see how we can improve the system.”

Chuck, however, made clear that he was not impugning the integrity of the Jamaican judiciary, something which, he stressed, he has never done.

“The integrity of our justices is not in question,” he said. “What I am saying is that the process of justice needs serious assessment and overhaul.”

He, at the same time, called for the publication of a 2003 report on the administration and performance of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, conducted by lawyer and former diplomat Robert Muirhead. That report has never been published.

“The leader of the Opposition has written enquiring about it, but it has not been tabled,” Chuck said.

In its formal statement, the JLP questioned the investigation and prosecution of the Jason Smith and Crawle cases, and suggested that in the latter the trial might have been compromised by the failure of the police to find and bring to court, a key prosecution witness, Danhai Williams.

Williams was expected to have testified about a gun allegedly planted by Adams at the murder scene and had received immunity from prosecution for accessory after the fact in exchange for his testimony. But Williams, a building contractor who was on bail in a corruption case, claimed that he failed to show because prosecutors wanted him to lie.

While he was in hiding from testifying, Williams failed to report to the police, which was part of his original bail terms. A warrant was ordered for his arrest but he received a new bail.